Ali Rizvi’s “The Atheist Muslim” Is What We Need For Moderate Muslims

I’ve always wanted to write more about moderate Muslims and express my great interest to that subtopic of Islam Reform. While I have created content in the past on the subject, the book we are about to discuss certainly gives the “necessary jolt” for me to discuss moderate Muslims in the West.

The book is about a wide variety of things, but if I had to sum it up it is about the conflicting ideological struggles and identity crises in the Muslim world today.

The “Muslim world” in this case consists of the global population of Muslims, from minority diasporas in the western world to Muslim majority countries in the Middle East, South Asia, North Africa etc.

A key strength of the book is that Ali provides something different. Traditionally the Ex-Muslim narrative has been one of victimization by family, society, local government etc. An example of this is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who had an ultraconservative upbringing in Somalia, and fled an arranged marriage. As Ayaan criticizes the effect of Islamic doctrines on women in the Muslim world, her critics silence her by either calling her “Islamophobic” or they brush off her criticisms as personal hatred rather than objective analysis.

This isn’t by any means an attempt to belittle or disregard the narratives of those whose victimization stories were a result of Islamic doctrines. Without such problematic consequences, there wouldn’t be a cause for Muslim apostates to begin with and the Atheist Muslim book would merely be scrapped into your typical atheist book where they debunk religion’s truth claims.

However, because Ali’s lived experience isn’t one of victimization, the book automatically deflects ad hominem criticisms such as “he has daddy issues and takes it out on his family’s religion”.

Ali covers an entire chapter on “The regressive left” and discusses how a large segment of the western left focuses on being anti-western imperialism over pro-liberalism. Because they are defined by what they are against: which is the “global capitalist, imperialist establishment” they often defend Islam from its critics in the name of protecting Muslims from “ideological and cultural imperialism.” He even addresses how these same liberal apologists of Islam call him an Uncle Tom, or agent of imperialism.

I appreciated all the aspects of the book because if you have followed my Youtube channel or this website, you will see I have discussed many of these subjects at length: from Muslim apologists defense of Islamic scripture to why the regressive left defends Islam.

Moderate Muslims

One of the subjects that fascinate me most which Ali successfully covers is the “Moderate Muslim” based in western societies. In her book Heretic, Ayaan Hirsi Ali includes this population with her category “The Meccan Muslims” because they emphasize the peaceful and loving verses from the Meccan period of the Quranic Revelation (in contrast to Madinah Muslims who emphasize the politicized, decisive, tribal, and often militant verses of the Madinah period.) While Ayaan provides us with a good start on this subject and distinction, the terms Mecca and Madinah Muslims are far too broad and binary for my preferences. Even within Mecca Muslims there are variations.

Ali draws upon these concepts and gets deeper into it. His response to Muslim apologists were meant more for the moderate Muslim who is either aloof about their religion, perceiving it as a mere cultural identity, or the Muslim who joins their university’s Muslim student communities. The moderate Muslims’ limited understanding of Islamic scriptures, (sometimes an elaborately dismissal of its negativity) influences their response to Islamist terrorism and the public discourse on Islam inspired social issues (misogyny, terrorism etc.)

Moderate Muslims are not the liars that far right bigots make them out to be. Their apologia and defense of Islamic scriptures as “inherently pacifist and feminist,” though inaccurate, don’t stem from a place of intentional dishonesty, but a subconscious form of denial due to the desire to reconcile their secular upbringing in western societies with the religion they grew up with/converted to.

Because Moderate Muslims understanding is that Islam is a religion of peace that founded women’s rights, this informs the western left wing thought process on Islam, creating the extreme divide on Islam we see today in public discourse. In order to effectively address problems caused by the doctrines of Islam, the wider Muslim population, most of whom are moderate Muslims, need to admit to the fallibility of the Islamic scriptures. It certainly does not help for a moderate Muslim to call these books absolutely infallible while an Islamist reads these same books to feed his increasing tribalism, misogyny, and the sense of urgency for his political cause.

Where the Islamist reads Quranic verses that say “Kill All Disbelievers” as what it says, the moderate Muslim will excuse such verses as out of context, and do whatever it takes to water down the negativity of the verse. You name it: “self defense,” “those were different times,” “it’s all metaphorical.”

In his book, Ali addresses every major defense claim moderate Muslims present. While this article briefly brushes through moderate Muslims’ defenses, his book delves into it to quite lengthy extents. He mentions their defense claim, addresses it based on scripture, and gets ahead of the conversation by addressing “that is out of context/from different time/metaphorical” in advance. In other words: read the damn book. 🙂

While there is much praise to be said about the intellectual substance in the book, Ali certainly deserves praise for the welcoming nature of his writing. Religion is often a sensitive subject to discuss especially with believers of said religions. Sometimes in order to effectively reach the faithful you have to present yourself as approachable, relatable etc. Ali expresses disagreement with the world’s Muslim population but without tones of tribalism. He invites readers to standing in solidarity with liberals in the Muslim world, who are overlooked by western media, the regressive left, and the Muslim population at large.

Potential Criticisms of The Atheist Muslim

Ali has discussed at length some of the menacing criticisms that will come his way: such as being called a self hating Islamophobe and an Uncle Tom. While these are silly ad hominems, one criticism apologists may use to “do damage control” of this book’s influence is by interjecting moral and cultural relativism. For example: Ali suggests throughout the book that classic liberalism and secularism is what we should support in the Muslim world. One might double down on the “regressive left” thought process and ask “what makes you think one culture is superior to the other?” Ali does present the problems Islamic theocracy pose for minorities they would not face in secular liberal democracies. However, suggesting the support of Western values in these conflicts reeks of “cultural imperialism” for the Western leftist. In order to address this: the question must be answered whether one culture is definitively and objectively superior to another. Otherwise, they’ll just call him a “brown man who drank the neoliberal Kool-Aid” and continue ignoring his critiques.

Invitation to Ali Rizvi

I host many different guests on my Youtube channel. There has been a common theme of “Islam in the 21st century,” and “Ex Muslims” throughout my interview videos (though there has been a handful few videos that discuss other subjects.) After reading this book, I have a great deal of questions for Ali Rizvi on the “moderate Muslim” subject as well as theology studies in American universities. I would love to have him on my channel and pick his brain on these matters.

Conclusion

To conclude my praise for his book, I must confess: it felt like Ali was speaking my mind 100% of the time. Everything that I have discussed through forums, Twitter, publishing content and in private discussions with peers is expressed in this book. I have friends who aren’t engaged in these discussions on the Muslim world as we are. They have other social issues they focus on. When I tell them to read this book, I say “if you want to get to know my thought process and some of my concerns of today’s world, read this book.”

I would recommend this book to anybody interested in Islam in the 21st century. He is an excellent writer. His charm, articulation, and calmness is expressed both in writing and is quite visible in his interviews as well.

10/10 must read.

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5 thoughts on “Ali Rizvi’s “The Atheist Muslim” Is What We Need For Moderate Muslims”

People are leaving Islam at a record pace these days, because Islam, despite it’s tall claims, doesn’t deliver many real world solutions. Most of those who leave Islam, has to stay quiet because there are millions of muslims who still believe that apostasy should be punished by death. Freedom of religion is still a concept that is alien in the muslim world, and even in muslim communities in the west.

But the floodgates have opened, and unless muslims strive to bring Islam to the 21st century through reivsion/reform, more and more people will continue to find the religion less and less appealing. As noted earlier, Islam, despite it’s tall claims, offers few real world solutions. World realities show that whereever people try to implement Islam, either at state or societal level, same kind of problems eventually ensue.

Such as misogyny, intolerance towards other belief systems and believers, lack of freedom of religion, homophobia, violent reactions to legitimate criticism of religion, extreme sense of religious supremacy, and so on. And all these problems are condoned by referring to verses and sayings of Islamic holy texts.

Merely saying Islam is this or that doesn’t cut it anymore. World realities count, and world realities aren’t very kind to Islam in it’s current form. The choice is yours, continue to deny world realities, or try to reconcile Islam with the 21st century.

Religions have elements within them that make them divisory, which is why it’s important that we stop excusing religions, stop glorifying them, and start acknowledging that all religions need to go through constant revision/reform to stay relevant. Otherwise they can become very harmful, as is evident in many muslim majority countries.

Thankfully with the free flow of information on the internet, Islam can’t muscle it’s way out of revision/reform anymore. For centuries, critics and dissidents have been threatened with all sorts of punishments, and thus they had to stay underground and quiet in public, but not anymore. The floodgates have opened. How many people of muslim background will you label as “islamophobes”? The number of people of muslim background, who are critical of certain parts of the religion they inherited from their parents, is rapidly growing, precisely due to the many problems certain aspects of their inherited religion keeps on creating.

No wonder you daily see posts on social media by people of muslim background, who are highly critical of religion. People don’t just wake up one day and say now we will start cirticising religion. It’s when religion creates problems over and over again, that people finally have enough and start pointing the finger at the root cause, instead of beating around the bush.